The Alchemist's Secret

"Hi, there! you big Freshman, take off your hat-yes, we're talking to you-take off your hat to the class above you-stop, don't try to get by, my sober-faced young friend. That would not be nice of you."

At first the Freshman did not understand that he was the one addressed, and, when he did, his first startled impulse was to hurry by and pretend not to notice them.

But he could not now; the walk was blocked by this group of four fellows who were now calmly smiling at him in an amused way, as if he were a curious child, though really he was as old as any of them. The only way he could avoid them was by turning back toward the street, and this he would not do. So he stood his ground and looked straight back at them.

"Well, you seem to enjoy looking; how do you like us, Freshman?" asked one of the Sophomores, taking his pipe out of his mouth. Three of them were smoking pipes and all four wore those queer striped-flannel coats of broad orange and black that had attracted his attention when he first got off the train. Afterward he learned that they were called blazers.

They were close beside him now and they were looking him up and down. One of them remarked to the others, "O, ye shades of Aaron Burr, but this is a green one. What's your name, Freshman?"

Then one of the others interrupted in a loud tone, "Take off your hat, Freshman."

It was the same high voice that had broken in upon him at the first. Its owner was the shortest of the lot, but he smoked the longest pipe.

"Take off your hat," he commanded, "and don't look so sober. We aren't going to hurt you."

They were all looking at him. The Freshman felt himself blushing; he smiled and tried to look good-natured.

"I wouldn't smile if I were you," put in one of the others; "your teeth aren't even."

The others laughed at this, but the small Sophomore said, "Come, wipe away that smile and take off your hat, I tell you."

The Freshman stopped smiling and looked up across the campus instead. Two men were entering an old brown building, busily talking, their arms about each other's shoulders; they seemed very happy. He shifted from one foot to the other.

"See here, Freshman," cried the little Sophomore, in an amazed tone, "didn't you hear me tell you to take off your hat?" He had a large, sneering mouth, and he constantly tried to say sarcastic things. He held his chin elevated, as if to make himself a little taller, and the big Freshman, looking down at him, thought how he would like to pick him up and spank him. The Freshman had no intention of taking off his hat.

Perhaps the Sophomore knew what he was thinking; at any rate, he stepped up close to him, and shaking a finger under his face, he snarled out, "You big, green Freshman from Squeedunk, you're the freshest one I've seen yet. We'll give you just five seconds to take off that ugly hat, and if you don't--"

"Look out-look out! there comes Matt," in a quick, scared voice, one of the others interrupted.

Matthew Goldie, the famous old proctor, was sauntering down the walk wriggling his fingers, as was his habit, and looking apparently in the other direction. This was also his habit.

Even in those days, before hazing was abolished by the undergraduate vote, when it was thought, even by the Faculty, that hazing had its redeeming features, it was a rather reckless proceeding for a crowd of Sophomores to take a Freshman in hand on the front campus in broad daylight and in plain sight of the Dean's house.

The small Sophomore's pipe was not two inches from the Freshman's face when the warning was sounded and Matt Goldie was coming straight down the walk toward him, and yet, to the surprise of all, he went on in the same earnest manner, only now he was saying:

"I tell you, my dear sir, you will thank me all your life if you join Whig Hall. Why, there is no comparing the two literary societies. Now, just look at the records of the past years: In the first place, Whig Hall was founded by President James Madison when he was a student here"--and then the small Sophomore went glibly on with the arguments the Whig men usually employ when claiming superiority to their rival society, Clio Hall.

Matthew Goldie had approached, come even with the group and passed by, oblivious of its existence, apparently. But the Sophomores knew he was not so oblivious as he looked, so they began to move off.

"Good-by, Freshman," they said, laughingly, "sorry we have to leave you so soon. Come on, Channing."

But Channing lingered a moment. "What's your name?" he demanded

The Freshman thought it was none of this fellow's business, but he wanted to show he was not afraid. "Young," he said.

"Your initials?"

"My name is William Young, if you want to know," answered the Freshman, decisively.

"Willie, eh?"

Those of the others who were near enough to hear laughed at this.

"Well, you are rather old to be called Young-Willie Young, especially. Hereafter you shall be known as 'Deacon Young.'"

"Aw, come on, Chan," called the others.

"All right," said Channing, but he turned to the Freshman as he started off and remarked, threateningly, "We'll meet again, you big, green Freshman."

"I hope so," promptly returned Young, "you little, mouthy Sophomore."

And this was the very worst thing he could have said, as he was afterward taught, if he had wanted to avoid hazing. He did not know that the best way to get along with the Sophomores was to take their initiating-not humbly, which was almost worse than getting mad about it-but laughingly and good-naturedly, for as soon as he acknowledged the fact that he was only a Freshman and recognized that he belonged to the lowest of four grades of college importance, they would let him alone.

But Young was not of a sort readily to acknowledge subordination to anybody, and he had never been hazed and he knew very little about college custom and all that, because he had been a college man less than twenty-four hours and the tray of his trunk was still unpacked.

It was Wednesday afternoon, the first day of the term, and he was on his way to chapel to attend the opening exercises of the college year, the first real college duty of his life, and he had almost reached the quadrangle when he was interrupted by the Sophomores and the disagreeable voice which called, "Hi, there, Freshman," at him, and which he thought he would never forget.

And now he went on up the stone walk under the tall elms, wiping his brow and telling himself that he was not homesick, but that he did not propose to let anybody talk to him that way, even if he was green and from the country, and he would show them.

He was from the country, to be sure, but that had nothing to do with it. He was guyed because he was a Freshman.

* * *

He was from the country, and he had come here to get a college education, and he had worked hard to come. He meant to make the best of his opportunities, and you could see that by the energetic way he strode through the quadrangle and up the broad path to chapel and took his place with two hundred others, who also were Freshmen and as green, many of them, as he was, and trying just as hard not to show it, though he did not know that. He thought they were upper-classmen and knew ever so much, and were looking at him.

* * *